That night, I felt like I was having a stabbing pains in my stomach and woke up four times to use the bath room. At 4:30 in the morning, when J got up to go see the sun rise at Angkor Wat (he’s feeling fine now, and will be staying on for the rest of the trip!), I took some anti-biotics, and went back to bed.

I slept in till almost noon, when Kim stopped by to see if I wanted to grab breakfast with them, and I was able to eat a full plate of pancakes, but still wouldn’t say my stomach is back to normal. I’m no longer in a dire rush to make it to the bath room, and think I should be OK on my 10 hour bus ride tomorrow, and even think I could have made it today if we had to, but was glad we pushed it back a day. J got to see Angkor Wat this way too, so I think it was the right call.

Tomorrow night we meet up with Judy (although I’m still not sure where yet…)!

Quick status update. From Hanoi we took a sleeper bus to Hue and rented motor bikes there to explore around for a day. Then we took a 3 hour sitting bus to Hoi an, which we didn’t like the looks of at first. I would have liked to see My Son temple near there, but we’ve been seeing so many, and were short on time so we moved on after grabbing lunch there. The sleeper bus got into Nha Trang around 6 the next morning, where we walked around, saw another temple, and got burned on the beach. The next day we went scuba diving in a coral reef which was truely incredible… too much to describe here…

From Nha Tran, we got another sleeper bus to Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) / Siagon, where we and Jason split up. I took the first bus to the port I needed to be at to get to Phu Quoc Island, where my friend Thanh was, while J checked out the Chu Chi Tunnels. It turned out he was able to get a night bus to meet up with me that night at 2:30 so we could arrive on the island together, which we didn’t think was possible in the morning, so that worked out well.

We then spent 2 days on the island down the street from where Thanh grew up till he was 7 at his uncle’s place. We ate a ton of foods I don’t want to even think about right now, fresh fruits (they lived on a fruit farm), relaxed, went out in their fishing boat to collect dinner, and just hung out in general. It was great!

After that we left on a 3 hour old boar ride to a small port in Vietnam near a new boarder into Cambodia. We were one of 4 travelers on it. The other two were two girls Bre from Canada, and Kim from Holland, who we’ve been hanging out with since. We took moto-bikes and a taxi up to Phnum Penh. We pretty much just spent a night there, and moved on to Siemreab where we spent 2 days looking at the temples of Angkor Wat, which were awesome. J got sick both these days, and is considering going home, but got out of the hotel room and ate a late lunch with us today, so hopefully he’ll turn around and keep going. I really think he might be a bit tired tomorrow but after that he should be back on track.

Tomorrow we’re, or at least I’m off to Bangkok to meet up with Judy. J might stay behind a day to see what he can of Angkor (which really makes me think that he’ll decide to stay on for the rest of the trip), but is still undecided. From there, we don’t have too many definite plans in Thialand as of yet, but we’ll work that out when we get there!

Last night we went to bed pretty early, around 9 I think, which was somewhat an accident, but that probably only means that we needed it that much more, so I woke up around 6:45 am. We got ready and headed for Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum. The lady at the front desk here, Tam Thuong (Relax) Hotel, told us that this was only open from 8-11 and that we should get there early, and so we headed right over before breakfast.

It was about a 20-30 minute walk from where we are in town, which is nothing for us now, especially after a night’s rest as good as last nights, but in the essence of time, we decided to motorbike it. We found two guys willing to drive us (which isn’t very hard, they’re like pidgins flocking to bread crumbs here), and talked them down from 50,000 dongs each to 20,000 dongs total (about $0.65 each) for the 10 minute ride.

We ended up getting there a little after 8, which was a pretty good time since a herd of Korean tourists and school children showed up shortly there after. They didn’t allow backpacks or cameras in the mausoleum, so there weren’t many pictures from today.

The mausoleum itself wasn’t all that enticing. They seemed to enforce a great deal of respect (no backpacks, crossing of the hands, hands in pockets, shorts, or revealing clothing are allowed in his mausoleum), for a man who they did not respect his dieing wishes (I believe I read somewhere that he wanted to be cremated, but his casket is on display here). You pretty much just walk in, around, and out in a single file line at a decent pace, with guards prodding you if you start to slow down.

Once through the mausoleum however, for 10,000 dongs ($0.66) you can view where he spent his time while president. He had several different buildings in which he lived, but confusedly enough, it seems that he went from living in somewhat of a mansion/palace to living in a house on stilts with only two rooms. They didn’t give much information on why this move was made, but it would be interesting to find out.

After this we headed over to the museum. Museums covering historic things like this generally interest me, so I started reading through most of the things on display at a fairly through pace, as J kind of wizzed on ahead. A lot of the newspaper articles and letters were only available in Vietnamese, but a fair selection of it, particularly the quotes, where in E
english as well.

After completing the first section of the museum, I moved on to the next expecting to see J finishing up there, but no luck. I went through here fairly quickly since there wasn’t too much english material here, and moved on up to the next floor.

Knowing that J wasn’t as interested in this sort of thing I skipped over almost everything here, figuring I’d go back, and tried to find him. However, I reached the end of the museum with still no sight. Thinking that I took too long (the first section of was pretty interesting), I went outside and looked for him there. Still nothing.

I waited there for 5 minuets then went out to the front desk where I checked my bag. Again, nothing. I retrieved my bag, ate a few bananas, and drank some water while I waited. Still no sight, it was almost 10:30 now so I decided to head back in to see the museum while I could, this time with my camera in hand.

As I started to walk back in, J saw me outside, and quickly ran over. We both ran over what we did and laughed. We snuck back in through the exit and went back up to the third floor where J had actually been and spent most of his time, and showed me what he thought was interesting so I could as much as possible in the little time left.

Hungry, we haggled with some motorbikes for the same fare back near the hostel for noodles. Getting a good price here was much harder since it seemed that most tourists at a place like this overpay here, but after a few minutes and getting a few bikes involved, it was pretty easy. Upon arrival, I only had a 20,000d to pay my guy, while J was paying 10,000d to his. I saw this and when they guy tried to say that I was paying for both of them, I grabbed on to the back of his bike and asked for my change. He tried to play innocent, and gave me my change.

The afternoon we spent walking around the Old Quarter a bit more. We went out looking for the ‘Towers of Hanoi’, which is the name of a famous math problem commonly given to freshman computer science students. What we found marked at this location was more like a cheap version of the Sears Tower, than anything traditional like were hoping, but it was still funny to get a picture of this.

The rest off the day was pretty much spent haggling with different travel agents for good prices for open bus tickets to Ho Chi Minh City, and Ha Long Bay, where we’re off to tomorrow. From the pictures I’ve seen the bay looks absolutely gorgeous, and there are a bunch of mountaintops with caves we’re able to explore sticking out from all over the bay. So I’m looking forward to it!

About an hour after it was supposed to arrive, our train came in, we boarded and immediately crashed.

We woke up 6 or 8 hours later just out side of KL. We organized whatever came out our packs or pockets as we slept (which I don’t think was very much since we were both so exhausted, despite us still be shower-less and wearing the clothes we started in four days ago), and headed over to our hostel.

We had booked a 2 bed room at _____ for roughly $9/person/night. Jason thought we were staying here for 2 nights, which I didn’t think was right, but we thought was confident about, and so we checked in. The place was very nice. Situated three blocks away from a popular mosque/attraction, near a college and a sort of financial district with lots of bank headquarters, and walking distance from both Little India and Chinatown.

There, we met a girl, Kat, from outside of Manchester in the UK. She was planning on going to some canopy walk (which ended up being closed for the Muslim holiday of Mohamad’s birthday) and then to the Batu Caves, a Hindu temple hidden in these caves outside of the city. I had read about these caves and wanted to see them, and the pictures of the canopy walk (think ewok-style rope bridges 30-40 ft up in the trees in the jungle) looked pretty cool, so I asked if she minded us joining along.

We stopped by the Central Market to pick up some rice lunches to eat in case there wasn’t food at the caves and caught a #11 bus all the way there. This was pretty easy to do since just about every person that worked there knew where we wanted to go before we even opened our mouths. This probably should have been our first warning, but I think we all over looked this.

The caves ended up being kind of interesting, but were seemed like more of a tourist trap than anything else. The majority of the caves / temple were free to enter, but there was a side trip one could do to do some spelunking (the normal / temple part of the caves where very open), and stores selling food, offerings, and silvorines. There was even a snack shop, and photo place in the caves after climbing the 280 something stairs all the way up there.

This all being said, I wouldn’t say that it was a waste of time or $1.33 in bus fare going here. There were real Hindus that came here, many of who had a really pale paste pasted over their heads which I wondered what it was, and the caves themselves were cool to look at. And then there were the monkeys in the parkinglot and on the stairs that you could give food if you were careful enough to do so before they tried to steal it from you, which was pretty fun.

The next bus home got us back to the hostel around 2-2:30, and we decided to shower and nap. This nap, our first in real bed in four, or was it five days?, quickly turned into a small day’s sleep, as we didn’t get up till 9 at night.

Famished, we set out for food, and found a Chinese night market. This was pretty cool, but incredibly touristy. I’d be surprised if there were more of a few stands that sold anything other than nock-off watches, fake designer hand bags, cheap tee shirts, or new sneakers.

We then set out to try and find a good spot to take a picture of the towers in KL. This proved more difficult than we would have thought, but was a good excuse to walk around the city. We did sneak into a really nice hotel which had glass elevators running the outside of it, which we thought might lend to a nice view, but due to other buildings around it, really didn’t provide much other than a little excitement and the tenative idea to come back another time to use the pool. All the walking got us pretty turned around, and it was getting sort of late, so we caught a cab back to the hostel and called it a night.

The interesting stuff all begins pretty much as soon as we landed in KL. We picked up our bagage (with out any trouble!) and headed out to the bus stop. It was pretty easy to find and there was a guy, Nazir, sitting there waiting for the bus that we later we would later become friends with. We checked with him to make sure that we were at the right stop for the bus we wanted and waited a few minutes.

After getting on the bus, an old guy (who we now refer to as A.Star) started asking me where I was from and such and so I moved over to talk to him. It was clear from a distance that he wasn’t entirely there, but we were on a bus filled with a lot of people, so it was pretty safe, and so I figured I’d talk to him. He told me stories about how he went to the US, used to play guitar with McJagared, and knew The Rolling Stones, amoung some other rock stars.

At this point it was easy to see he track marks on his arm, his eyes watering when he talked, the sole tooth in his mouth, and that he had a ‘pos top, so I was taking everything he was saying with more than a grain of salt, and found my way back to my seat after singing a verse of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” with him. Later Nazir would tell us that he didn’t know this guy’s full story, but did know that he had been to the US and played with big bands and so it was possible that his stories were reasonably true…

So we finally arrive at Komta Square and get off the bus with A.Star, and Nazir. A.Star tried to talk to me some more but Nazir brushed him away for us. Starving, we took this act of kindness as an opportunity to start talking to Nazir and asked him if there were any good places to get some food. He told us of a place andwas going in the same direction and offered to show us it.

We walked maybe 10 minutes or so with Nazir ang go to know him a bit. Grew up on Penang. Was a graphic designer. Had four kids, ages 4(?) to 12. Etc.

When we got at the resaurant/street vendor that he recommended, I offered to buy him lunch (which would cost about 5RM / $1.75) for showing us there and being so nice. He declined lunch but stayed to get a milk tea and talked with us.

He was great, and it was a lot of fun talking to him and getting to know a real local, and apparently he thought the same. It turned out that the woman that worked where the poster he was carrying and had to deliver was out today and so he didn’t have anything to do and offered to show us around. We didn’t want to intrude, or take advanatage of his generousity, but he persisted that he nothing else to do, and so we had our own local guide.

Nazir showed us all around. Where the local backpacker inns were, which was on Lover’s Lane. This was apparently also where all the ‘Lady Boys’, a local term for men in drag, hung out which seemed like an awkward thing to mention, but I don’t think there was anything else to it. He showed us some pre-WWII houses, the local school, some old colonial buildings that had been renoated an repurposed as the local court house. He also showed us the esplenad, and commented on how the beaches that used to be here were, and how all of the construction in the area ruined the water.

We walked past the first fort built on the island by the British, which was supposed to be used to protect the island from the Dutch, but was really used to take control off it. He showed us the local beachnut tree and fruit which the island was named after and then the financial district.

He then took us back next to where we got lunch and into his mosque. He showed us where they cleaned themselves before prayer and the original well built there back in what I think was the 1800′s, and explained a bit of it’s history. He explained how often they were supposed to prayer, which we asked if he was missing today, and he told us how he was also supposed to be kind to others and that this was a special day and that it was ok. He gave us some material on Islam and terrorism, and how not all Muslims believed in such extremes. He commented that he wasn’t trying to convert us at all, but that he really just wanted us to educate us and kind of clear the name of his religion a bit. I know that I at least felt really honored by him showing us all of this, and think Jason liked it to. It was definitely an experience we would not have had on our own if we had not met him.

It now had to be at least mid afternoon, and he wanted take us to his classmate’s food stand and buy us a snack. We stopped by and aquirum/fish and pet store on the way there, and had more milk tea and some of the brightest neon pink colored tapioka sweets and some traditional donut like pastry. Both were pretty good, especially if once you were able to get over the extreme color.

It was now about time to go and catch our ferry. We took a longer route back, passing by the esplinade again on our way to Penang. Nazir told us it was a shame that we only had one day on the island and that if we came back he would find us some scooters to use and show us more of it.

After a second calculation on how much time we needed to catch our train, we found out we had more time to kill, so we offered to share one more milk tea with Nazir before leaving. I thought about offering him something for spending litterally close to 8 hours showing us arround, but really think that it would have been rude, and so got his address instead and am going to send him something later ( a book on Whitey Bulger maybe, since we talked about Boston a bit, and he said he liked to read biographies and mobsters).

I’m not so sure what Penang would have been like if we hadn’t met Nazir, but since we did, it was amazing. Especially since this was the frst day of our trip. I really can’t imagine a cooler way to have kicked it all off.

Everything was going pretty smoothly. We landed without hassle and headed over to the Continental Service desk to see what we had to do to get our next boarding pass. They directed us towards the Malaysian Airlines desk in the terminal where our flight would leave.

In talking to the girl here, I gave the girl my boarding pass and sleeve for it. Earlier Jason and I had talked about how we both used to save all of our flight stubs, but how I no longer wanted to do this since I fly so much now and they just become clutter. So when the girl gave me my ticket back I tossed my sleeve in the rubbish to lessen the number of papers I had in my pocket, and put the used boarding pass back into my pocket, thinking it might still be useful.

Once we arrived at the Malaysian Airlines we discovered that they didn’t have any day flights, so their desks were all closed till 7pm. We wondered the concourse for a while and grabbed a bit to eat before heading back over to the ticketing desk.

At 7 we got in line and the people in front of us were served, and we made our way to the front of the line. We checked in, got our boarding passes and then they asked for our baggage slips…. which were on the sleeves to our original boarding passes… Great..

It turned out this was no big deal. We just ran over to the Continental desk and they showed us that this information was actually on our passes as well so we were fine. But this lead to us to think, “Why did they need this anyways?”.

When we checked in originally, the bag tags said Penang, and we were told our bags would go straight through. But from what we could tell, Malaysian Airlines in Newark had to manually write down all of these numbers, and then search through what we imagine to be a mountain of bags stuck in luggage purgatory…

Its been about 30 hours since we last saw our bags, but I’m pretty confident that it will all work out. We’re at the airport now before our last connecting flight in Malaysia so we’ll find out soon!

This trip isn’t much different. Originally I intended to have two weeks to use to deal with getting new insurance, planning out the trip, seeing everyone, etc, etc… But then the trip just kept growing bigger and bigger.

It all started when my friend Judy told me I should come visit to her in Thialand. Sure! Then we looked into spending two weeks in India. Tickets for $400? How could we not?

Then my friend Jason showed interest in coming. I really didn’t think that he was going to come when I first asked, but a few weeks later, he followed up to see how things were going, and so he was in!

Then I talked to Thanh. Turns out his brother is getting married in Vietnam around the sametime we’ll be there. Ok!

If we’re going to go to three Asian countries, might as well add 3 more: Malaysia, Singapore, and Cambodia! Your It!

We actually looked into going to Indonesia for a short while too. But then we read the CIA’s travel advisory site for it. Its ranked at the highest level. Right up there with Iraq, Iran, and Packistan… I think we’ll pass…

So weeks go by, and I’m as busy as always, and have no time to plan out anything. I’m not too worried since that was about the same story when it came to Peru, but something tells me South East Asia might be a little different… But then Jason comes to the rescue! Since he works for himself from home, he was able to plan out most of the trip. He found the cheapest flights, booked hostels in the first few cities we would be staying in, worked out the ground transportation between countries, found out where we needed visa’s for, you name it! I felt like I had my own personal travel agent. It was great!

I managed to get a few days off to go to NYC and Boston to work on applying for Visa’s for India and Vietnam to try and pull my weight planning for this trip. On the bus ride back home I ended up sitting next to Arvinder’s friend’s (Udit) brother (Himanshu). Turns out Odith is also getting married on the same days we’re going to be in India and so Himanshu extends an invitation to us. Arvinder couldn’t let me go to HIS best friend’s wedding without him being there, so he joins in too…

While in India, I’m also hoping to possibly meet up with some of the people I met there before, like Marina and Balaji(!!!). So I’ll be traveling to the complete opposite side of the planet, visiting six counties, and seeing AT LEAST six friends from back home! I can’t wait!